Patrol Method in Practice – The Adult Role

Imagine a bus tour of some important city where, seated in the air-conditioned comfort of a motor coach, we listen to the guide explain each landmark in detail so we won’t miss anything. The guide sticks to the script, we sit behind the tinted windows of our bus dutifully turning our heads to the left, then to the right. There’s so much explaining that there’s not much time left for questions and soon the tour is over.

Contrast the bus tour with a hike led by a knowledgeable guide. He takes up the rear letting our group lead and find the trail. When the path branches he’ll tell us which way to go if we can’t figure it out on our own. He doesn’t mind if we stop now and then to admire a flower or take in the view. He’ll happily tell you what you are looking at if you ask.

Our guide will volunteer little information, he’ll drop a hint here and there and he’ll answer questions. We may miss some sights along the way or pass by interesting things, but our group will probably get more out of what we discovered on the hike and asked about than the things the guide told us about.

Guiding Scouts using the patrol method is more like the hike than the bus tour; a gentle push in the right direction than dragging them along; a suggestion rather than a command, a question asked rather than an answer given. The adult role in the patrol method is more responsive than directive. Each group of Scouts is different so how we play our role is a response to their development, group dynamics and abilities.

There’s a difference between guiding and coercing. If we follow the metaphor our group of hikers has some idea of where they want to go and the guide is responding to rather than determining the interests of the group. We ought to respond to the interests of our Scouts rather than determining what they should be interested in. The field of play is the Scouting program, we guide them within that context, we train them to follow the program.

Our role in Scouting is important but we aren’t in the leadership structure, we aren’t even on the chart.

Scouts form their own patrols, elect their senior patrol leader and patrol leaders, we don’t appoint them. We respond to the choices made by the Scouts and start guiding the leaders they elected.

Recall from the last post that we are not focusing on decorations and indicators, those come later. We think that the content of meetings and camping trips are all-important, but they are actually just decorative. We think that the metrics of attendance, membership, fundraising and advancement are important but they are merely indicators.

There are troops where the patrol method is watered down to an administrative nicety, a way to divide Scouts into more manageable groups and provide figurative leadership positions for Scouts. When we put the patrol method into practice things change dramatically. Since people are usually resistant to dramatic change there are objections. In the next post we’ll answer the most common objections to putting the patrol method into practice.

About Clarke Green

Clarke has worked with thousands of Scouts and Scouters as a director at his local Scout Camp (Camp Horseshoe), and as a Scoutmaster for 30 years. He is the recipient of a number of awards recognizing his service to Scouting, including the B.S.A.’s Silver Beaver, District Award of Merit, and is a Vigil Honor member of Octoraro Lodge 22. He is author of the blog and podcast at Scoutmastercg.com, The Scouting Journey, and Thoughts on Scouting. An avid outdoorsman and amateur actor, he lives in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania with his wife Teddi.

Comments

Right On Clarke. It’s too bad you are also right about the watered down convienance for adults.
Larry. Spot on. It’s all about the PLC and how they have been trained to do what they are supposed to do.
Guided Discovery is how I learned this stuff and how we need to allow our Scouts to learn it, practice it, and have fun with it.

“It’s probably really relative to the abilities of the Scouts and their experience…especially what they’ve seen for the time they’ve been in the troop.” Yes, exactly! They can only lead what they know.

The key is to never give up turning it over to them. Always be in a posture of backing away. Poke, prod, then back off. Ask, suggest, then back off. Don’t ever settle for the idea that they can’t do it.

IDEAL:
Four patrols of eight members each and an even distribution of ages within each patrol. The patrols are essentially evenly matched in age and skill level. The older Scouts are training the younger Scouts. New Scouts are integrated into an existing patrol as they join the Troop.

Patrols have an identity. The younger Scouts trust their Patrol leadership and the Patrol members work together well.

1. Games
I have found that the use of common Scout games (not schoolyard sports games) can even out the game competition significantly once new Scouts are past the initial introductory phase. A 12 year old can tie a square knot or a bowline as fast as a 15 year old once he knows the knot.

Competition in Scout games is not for winning but for developing skills. It’s not to earn a trophy but to practice and hone the skills they’ve learned.

Whenever you have a problem lik CJ describes, you’re not doing Scouting. You’re doing something else. It’s amazing to me how seldom I see the Troop Program Helps actually being used. Scoutmasters let their leadership off the hook way to often and allow them to default to non-Scout activities on a regular basis.

2. Scout games begin within the Patrol. Decentralize all of your activities. Put the Patrol Leaders in charge. NOT the SPL. Take a month and have the Patrol Leaders teach their Scouts a Scout game. Have them practice within the patrol. Then on the last meeting of the month have inter-Patrol games. Next month, start over. Program them that when they show up at their Scout meeting they are doing Scout stuff and not school/4H/athletics/etc stuff. Make it Scouting all the time. They will eventually learn to think about games and competition in a new way.

3. Train your staff. If you have three ASMs then each of you become expert at one of four Scout games/events. Each leader will become responsible for teaching that game to the Patrol Leaders at JLT and sometimes at PLC meetings (at a separate time from their planning time). So you might have a knot guy, a compass guy, a first aid guy and a naturalist identification guy. They each learn the games that reinforce their skill area.

4. Rotate, rotate, rotate! Don’t ever let your leaders or Scouts get into the “shooting baskets for 25 minutes every meeting” rut. A new game every week or every month. Always. You can rotate things back through regularly, that’s ok. But every meeting should be different.

5. You have a bunch of 14/15 year old Scouts and some younger ones and a new Scout Patrol. Every meeting the older Scouts go out and shoot baskets and eventually the younger Scouts are getting into trouble or wandering back in the meeting room and sitting around talking and getting bored. Don’t let your Patrol Leaders allow that to happen. Point out the problem to them. Teach them alternatives. Read the Troop Program Helps. Copy sections of it, give them to your Patrol leaders and have them read it. Over and over again!!

6. Ideally the SPL should be out in front of all of this. If the Troop has had a strong Patrol centered program in the past, he will be fully prepared when his time comes. If not, then he’s clueless. It’s your job to get him on track. Assign him some goals. Goal 1: Have a different game every meeting for a month. If he can’t come up with four games on his own, make suggestions. Show him the Scouting material (meeting planner, PL handbook, etc) that describes how Scouting works.

7. Incorporate the weekly program into the monthly program. Have the games/skills of the month relate to the monthly campout. The PLC needs to learn how to plan this stuff but the SM must lead them into the parts of the program. Campouts should be challenging events that grow out of the weekly program.

Thanks for the suggestions, Larry. I find myself trying to balance between being too involved, and not being involved enough. Some of what I’ve read seems to suggest really only getting involved when safety is a concern, but other things (including your comments) suggest more guidance and coaching. It’s probably really relative to the abilities of the Scouts and their experience…especially what they’ve seen for the time they’ve been in the troop.

I forwarded this blog post to my SM and CO-ASMs along with this group of questions and a challenge to make this years focus on patrol method and not on other factors. If anybody has additional questions to support this line of questioning I’d love to hear them.

How much do our patrols really do on their own? Why or why not?
Does our patrol leader hold any real influence in their patrols?
What do they see as their responsibility?
Is it to lead, train and inspire their patrol members?
Is it the same for a the PL of an older scout patrol?
How do our meetings support the patrol method vs. a troop method?
How can we encourage out SPLs role in leading the patrol method?
What practices do we have that support a Troop or adult method instead of the patrol method?
What factors are we focusing on that we shouldn’t be.
How can we better support the PLC with their leadership and decision making?

One problem we experience is some outings will have a low turn out with only one or two boys from a couple patrols attending. We wind up combining the boys together which seems to take away from the patol method.

This is pretty common. I haven’t quite arrived at the point of discussing it in this series but I think we have to work with patrols as a more fluid thing than in the past. What’s important is that they exist, that they are working, who is in the patrol is not as important.

Great patrol method posts, Clarke! I struggle to encourage the guys to leverage the patrol method more…sometimes at all! It amuses and frustrates me that, whenever they’re doing a team game, they do a schoolyard pick instead of going with their patrols. I need to keep reminding them that it’s their troop, but it’s a TROOP, which means we leverage the Scouting program. Any suggestions for how to get Assistant Scoutmasters on board with this concept, if they’ve been accustomed to other models before?

Thanks Clarke for the Patrol Method posts. It is useful information for every adult volunteer no matter how long they have been in the organization. Personally, I’d like to pull my hair out sometimes, but its great fun when it all comes together at meetings or campouts.

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